I've had my D80 for about a month now and I've tried a few portraits of my daughter. She's at an age where it is nearly impossible for me to get her to pose and hence I don't have very many true portraits of her. These were taken with my D80 and 50 mm f/1.8. The blue background is from an inflatable pool and I had to snap quickly while she chose to stay still for about a minute, so I didn't get to choose a better location for the shot. I love the potential of my 50 mm prime lens, but I'm nowhere near getting the quality of shots that I would like. I would appreciate any advice on getting the most out of this lens for portraits.

I don't suggest that at all, its going to give you very harsh shadows and its going to wash out the subject and its going to render a some what unpleasing image, try indirect light and the use of reflector if you can! Now i know this can be hard on kids as they are constantly moving about.

Also try to shoot the kids from just below their nose up instead of at their level or from above them, give some very nice results

Thanks luis, alex168 and 2610ksj for your comments and advice. I'll try them out next time. I do prefer taking candid shots of my daughter because that is the only way to truly capture her personality, but every once in a while I try to get her to slow down so I can take a couple of posed shots. Here are a few more:

Is it always necessary to always to capture the subject's eyes? I'm not sure exactly why but I like the profile shot above. The second shot was my daughter's attempt to get ready for a posed picture by fixing her hair. I think that one turned out well because it caught her in a real "moment" before the pose. As for the third one, would some type of flash helped? Currently I only have the built in flash on my D80 and I've not gotten great results using that flash.